Valentine's Crafts / Decoration

Well, I am finally getting around to posting about my Valentine's Day decor... I normally don't decorate too much for V-Day, but this year, there were too many cute projects and ideas out there for me *not* to.

The first thing I had seen that I just LOVED was from Simple As That - a banner created with book pages, hearts, and buttons. Here's my version:

I started with the book pages, cut to about 4x6, then cut the notch out of the bottom. I also used my favorite ink - Tim Holtz "Vintage Photo" distress ink and inked all of the edges. I had bought some heart-shaped doilies from Michael's that I also inked with a pink chalk ink from SEI. I also printed/cut some shapes from Silhouette - the heart love circles and of course, inked the edges of those, also. I took some of my Pick Your Plum resign flowers, and added those to the middle of each circle. I couldn't resist also adding a little bling, as well, so I dug out some pink circles and some butterfly and dragonfly bling I had in my stash! Then, I needed to assemble them, so I used my Baker's Twine (also from Pick Your Plum) and folded the tops over the twine, and stapled them down. I had also found these adorable mini closepins from Michael's and added those after I hung my banner.

Here's the closeups of each one:

The rest of my decor looks like this:

I'll describe these from left ... to right... starting with the "Keep Calm and Love On" - this was a GroopDealz Vinyl that I just had to have. They had it in a white frame on glass, but mine just didn't want to stay together, so I put the polka dot paper in the frame with it.

The large XO canvas on the wall came from this idea - I used a larger font, but followed her instructions on painting over the vinyl letters and then removing them. instead of leaving them white, though, I painted (very carefully!) over the white with gray. Don't look too closely!!

The chalkboard is one I made for Christmas that I'm swapping out quotes for each holiday.

The "love" sign is my favorite!! Another Pick Your Plum deal - they had the signs on one deal and the LOVE woodcut on another. So, let me describe how I did this one - Shannon actually had a larger board that fit the LOVE woodcut perfectly, so I snagged it from her. Then I painted that board with chalkboard paint, and measured the size for vinyl. Using my Silhouette, I cut the silver vinyl from the hugs kisses border which I just duplicated a couple of times to fit like I wanted it to. The cordless drill punched 2 holes at the top for the wire, and 5 along the bottom. Shannon and I had gone to this amazing outdoor bazaar a few months back, so I picked up the chandelier glass from that and added it to the bottom.

The warmer is the February Scentsy (LOVE IT!), and the hearts in the jar were an idea from this site. I cut the hearts from cardboard, and then I just wrapped them while watching TV over a couple of evenings.

While I was working on all of these projects... I also had an attack of printables...

Left to right again - But the Greatest of these is LOVE printable, the other LOVE more and LOVE printables came from Sprik Space - but what I did was color them to match the first one using Photoshop, and *then* I printed them so they would all match.

The Kiss wood / glitter stand came from Walgreens and the sequinned heart in the back came from Michael's. The small vase came from my mom, so I have no idea where she got it! :)

Enjoy!!

~Jen



Project 365

I've decided to participate this year... if it kills me! Which, it might. Especially after I ran out the door today with my camera and my 28mm lens... but no battery!!! Whoops!

You'll notice that while Day 1 & Day 2 are photos taken with my beautiful Canon 60D... Day 3 & 4 are already iPhone photos :) Such is life, though! I've started to work on letting little things go... it's not the end of the world that I had to use the iPhone for my pictures the last 2 days - I will just try to be better the rest of the week/month/year!

I've found over time that I'll shoot and shoot and shoot tons of pictures for a couple of days and then I won't for a while... a habit I need to quit!

Well, here goes nothing!! My first favorite shot of the year comes from the Space Needle in Seattle! I spent my New Year's weekend in Seattle with some good friends and had a blast exploring in the little bit of time I had on my short trip:

Day 2 ~ Taken from the window driving back from Roslyn, WA:

Day 3 ~ The only shot I took on Jan. 3rd was my son in his new PJ's from Christmas:

Day 4 ~ Another iPhone photo of the beautiful Colorado sunset:



I really hope to stay on track with this project and also remember to blog about it!!!!

Happy New Year!

~Jen

Expressions Vinyl is giving away a Silhouette CAMEO!!

Check out my link on the right side of the blog to get to the Expressions Vinyl page and go sign up to win a Cameo!! I have the original Silhouette SD and I LOVE it - the only complaint I ever had was that it didn't do 12x12 - and the Cameo DOES!!

Take a look!!

~Jen

Stationery card

Blossoming Joy Christmas Card

Shutterfly has elegant Christmas party invitations for your holiday party.

View the entire collection of cards.

December Daily...

Well, I have completed slacked off posting anything out on the blog...

But! I am hoping to participate in the December Daily project this year, and keep track of everything that we do during this wonderful season!!

So, to start off today's post - we are getting our first real snow storm since October here and "It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas" around here. It's beautiful outside, but of course, cold, which the puppies hate. I let my little man take the day off from school because I didn't want to drive in the slush, either, and we've stayed in PJ's all day long.

Working from home is fantastic and I'm so blessed to have such a great job and be able to work from home like I do, and this season, I am looking forward to crafting and writing about the holidays with my family.

~Jen

Today...

 

 

Today I went to the gym and had a personal trainer session (got measured and lost inches!).

Today I hoped that the pager would stay quiet.

Today I dreamed of doing photography full time and making money at it.

Today I forgot to return some phone calls.

Today I heard less noise in my office because I finally the window replaced.

Today I read my usual bloggy hang outs and Facebook updates.

Today I watched my kiddos rush around before school in order to watch TV.

Today I broke into my savings in order to pay off some debt.

Today I said "Ohhhhhh awesome sauce!"

Today I believed that I could get totally caught up (some day!).

Today I felt stressed about stuffs (what else is new?).

Today I wondered if I can really wear two business hats.

Today I bought my sister's Save the Date cards!

Today I cleaned all my dishes from baking lots of zucchini bread.

Today I was me.

DCWV: August Stack-a-holic Template Challenge

This is based on a Sketch Savvy layout for DCWV ~ it includes 3 pictures in the sketch, but I used one of the spots to add a journaling card. The layout was 2 pictures from my daughter's choir concert in Nov. 2010, so I'll add it to my Document 2010 album along with the last one I posted. :)

I'm also linking this to Shimelle's Challenge: Signature Accent because I noticed that almost every layout I created tonight used brads - this one may be harder to see, but the center of each flower I added is a different color mini-brad. I think that punching the tiny holes into the paper for the brads is extremely therapeutic. :)

~Jen